Certain people,
calling themselves socialist, will claim that communism itself is a perversion
of the principles created by Marx and that it has nothing to do with real
socialism. However, there is a
problem. What exactly is
socialism? Much like
"liberalism" and "conservatism", the definition of this
word seems to change depending on the place or person you label it (this being
the primary reason that using "left" and "right" in a
political sense is often intellectually dense).
However, unlike "liberalism" and "conservatism",
which have base meanings (“lefty-loosey; righty-tighty”), socialism has no
obvious definition.
The word
“socialism” exists in two political names: United Soviet Socialist Republic and
Nationalist Socialist (Nazi) Party. What
do these have in common, other than political oppression and murder? If oppression and killing were the base
meaning of socialism, then we would simply call it tyranny and not add a
prettier label to it.
Dictionary.com
provided an interesting definition: "A transitional stage after the
proletarian revolution in the development of a society from capitalism to
communism: characterized by the distribution of income according to work rather
than need." So, if this is correct,
socialism is the pathway to communism, and has no individual permanence? Is this then a statement affirming that
anyone who desires socialism is someone who desires to go on the path to
communism? We are still no closer to the
meaning of socialism, as dictionary.com prefers defining "socialism"
according to Marxist theory. This must
be incorrect, as Hitler called his country socialist, and he was not a Marxist. Therefore, the base definition of
"socialist" must be broad enough to carry the full weight of those
that label themselves that way.
This word is not
fully understandable until broken down.
What is "social"? This
basically means to interact with others.
Therefore, socialism must be about groups, for one cannot be social by
oneself. Thus, the opposite of socialism
is individualism. We can then
extrapolate. Individualism is the
political view of people as unique individuals working toward goals of their
own choosing. Therefore, socialism must
be the political view of people as groups or collectives working toward a
common purpose regardless of individual characteristics.
That, therefore,
becomes the meaning of those words for the purpose of this essay. However, this presents a glaring problem with
socialism. It views people as groups. Where have we seen this before? In statements such as these: "all black people
are _____ ", "all women are _____", and "all people from
this country are _____". Granted,
sometimes grouping people together is not necessarily bad, such as in the
sentence “all students get bored with high school geometry”, but grouping leads
the logical person to wonder if such group statements are universally
true. Maybe someone really does like
high school geometry, or his reaction is frustration rather than boredom. It is therefore an oversimplification to
group people together too tightly.
But can you deny
that political socialism does the same?
No. Hitler had his "all Jews
are inferior" and Stalin his "all criminals are socially
friendly". Even considerate
socialism is awkward. For example, are
soldiers who have PTSD equally needy?
No. One may need extensive
therapy, but the other a beer and good friends.
It would be folly to buy therapy for both, especially when the second
soldier might find the therapist invasive and impersonal. What the second soldier longs for is merely
normalcy and not the weekly reminder of being an emotional, "broken
man". Therefore, viewing people as
individuals is the wiser way of looking at things. While it is true groups have similarities because
the group is defined by their similarities, each person has different
characteristics of culture and personality.
Something strange about
communism is that its leaders are anti-religious. Frequently the major spiritual opponent of communism
is Christianity. On its face, there is
nothing particularly anti-communist about Christianity. Jesus is never political in the Gospels, and
emphasizes personal morality and mercy.
If communism was as idealistic as many claim, then Christianity and
other religions would be merely incidental to the communist nation. Why then where monks and nuns of Soviet
Russia persecuted (Solz i326)?
Christianity, and
its precursor Judaism, mainly involve personal morals and doing the right thing
in whatever situation one finds oneself.
Even in times of national immorality, such as just prior to Israel’s
conquest by Babylon, God rewarded those that were moral. Ebed-Melech the Ethiopian was rewarded for a
simply act of rescuing the prophet Jeremiah[1]. In fact, the Rechabites, a Jewish family,
were rewarded for simply obeying their father’s tradition, though at no point
did God tell them to do so[2]. Their stand against an immoral world and
God’s resulting promise to them showed that God, and therefore Judaism and
Christianity, views people as individuals and considers them that way, so that
a moral individual is not grouped with an immoral nation. Therefore, these religions are individualist,
not socialist.
This however seems
a weak excuse, at least to an American, whose culture is a buffet of various
ideas. After all, if religion is “the
opiate of the masses” as Marx’s mis-quoters say (Cline par. 3), then for what
reason does communism care about it? Are
not passive citizens better for their purposes?
To understand, one must go back to the logical objections to communism: It is the worst specimens of humanity that
are going to be the ones that notice that communism allows all power to go to
the ones that distribute. Thus, the
criminal or self-seeking types in power will automatically be in direct
opposition to anyone who stands by morality.
So much so, that when Southern comedian Lewis Grizzard once visited
Soviet Russia, and he reported
that many churches had been seized and turned into “museums of atheism”
(35). “In addition, how many kinds of
cursed intellectuals there were--restless students and a variety of eccentrics,
truth-seekers, and holy fools, of whom even Peter the Great had tried in vain
to purge Russia and who are always a hindrance to a well-ordered strict regime”
(Solz i28).
Solzhenitsyn
is also a confirming source as to why Christians had it hard: Solzhenitsyn
explains this phenomenon: “How little was required for struggle and
victory—merely not to cling to life!” (Solz ii309). This concept is very comparable to the
Bible’s “whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his
life will preserve it.”[3] Thus, the
value of Christianity in a communist society is its ability to enable a person
to resist. After all, if a person will
go to heaven when he dies, execution cannot make him afraid.
Something odd I have
discovered in studying Cuban communism is that Christopher Hitchens, famed
atheist, supports Che Guevara (Fontova 10).
One expects a celebrity to know nothing about politics and history, but
a man who is celebrated for his intelligence?
Surely he would do the research to find out what sort of person Guevara
really was, or at least look at the results of Guevara’s actions. The illogic of a highly acclaimed man is
dangerous to the unsuspecting mind.
My final reason for
engaging in the study of the most poisonous philosophy of our time is that it
makes its students feel smart. Quite
frankly, making it through The Gulag Archipelago is an achievement in and of
itself. I never once felt this way after
learning anything in school, because the public school system itself (here I am
referring to pre-college education, where I have more experience) is oriented
in a way that makes students not want to learn, but rather get through the
system with as little effort as possible.
It teaches nothing in depth.
Studying
this topic opens our eyes to a haunting world that did indeed exist. No one can say that evil is not real. No one can say Communism deserved a chance. There is a mystical layer of speculative
philosophy in America and other wealthy countries that rises because we are
relatively safe; reality, however, annihilates speculation. That which exists is infinitely more
important than theory, and yet theory can manipulate people’s minds such that when
reality arrives, the manipulated are deceived into a world they never wanted
but brought about with their own hands.
This is exactly what Karl Marx did, and why he is guilty of all the
deaths done in his name. Ideas are not
equals, no matter the intentions of the philosopher in question.
Cialdini, Robert B.
Influence: the Psychology of
Persuasion. New York: William Morrow
and Company, Inc., 1993. Print.
Cline, Austin.
"Is Religion the Opiate of the Masses?" Karl
Marx on Religion. About.com. 2013.
Web. 23, Apr. 2013.
De Jonge, Alex. Stalin and the Shaping of the Soviet Union. New York: William Morrow and Company Inc.,
1986. Print.
The Economist.
"Adios to the Greenback".
Economist.com. 28 Oct., 2004.
Web. 22 Mar., 2013.
Fontova, Humberto. Exposing
the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots who Idolize Him. London:
Sentinel, 2007. Print.
Grizzard, Lewis. I Took a Lickin' and Kept on Tickin', and
Now I Believe in Miracles. New York:
Villard Books, 1993. Print.
Loebl, Eugen. My
Mind on Trial. USA: Harvest/HBJ, 1976. Print.
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I. The
Gulag Archipelago. New York: Harper
& Row, 1973. Print.
Suvarov, Viktor. The
“Liberators”: My Life in the Soviet Army.
New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1981. Print.
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